thanks so much for that. we have another guest, somebody who's right in the thick of this, congressman steny Hoyer, the house minority whip, congressman out of maryland, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

good day.

i want to ask you about the deal or no deal. has progress been made since the late into the night talks?

there's no deal now as far as i know. from what i've heard this morning. there's still work on it. what we're going to be trying to do today is to make sure that we keep government operating over the next seven days with a very simple agreement. we call it a clean cr in the jargon which means we're going to keep things going as they're going now while we're negotiating and trying to reach a deal. shutting down the government will have a very negative effect on the economy. millions of people throughout the country as well as our federal employees and the services they perform. so it's not a good thing to do. unfortunately, we've seen this scenario played out before in 1995.

i just want to ask you a quick question, you're talking when you say a clean cr, continuing resolution, didn't the house put one together, didn't house gop put one together that had something to do with defense that was a sticking point for democrats?

defense was not the sticking point. there were other riders within that bill which clearly the president has indicated he wouldn't sign. the senate said they wouldn't pass. so we made the point it ought to be clean, meaning simply, dealing solely with numbers. the defense issue was not the issue. the issue was the riders. mitch daniels, the governor of indiana, republican, former chair of the former head of the omb, said look, these riders ought to be for other bills. you want to solve the financial issues confronting the country. we've come 70% of the way towards what republicans wanted to do. i think anybody that goes 70% of the way, thinks they've gone a pretty far way towards reaching reasonable agreement on restraining spending and the campaign. i never heard anybody say you're going to restrain spending if you do this, that or the other. they said restrain spending, we're doing that. i would hope the republicans would deal with that issue and then deal with their other issues on later bills. they'll have that opportunity.

congressman Hoyer, you -- to some degree, it's benefited the democrats that the republicans are having some struggle on this. we spoke to your colleague, congressman alan west earlier who said he is stuck to his $61 billion in cuts, we may be close to $40 billion in cuts, that's not enough to move him, others on the republican party who say that they want to deal with planned parenthood and deal with restricting the environmental protection agency and they don't want to budge on that. the reality is, if the republicans can't get it together, if the tea party republicans and regular republicans can't get it to together and there's a shutdown, it shines the light on the democrats who didn't pass this budget when they controlled both houses. what have you got to do to get their maneuvering in line?

well, let me talk about we didn't pass a budget. you'll recall the reason that the senate couldn't get a budget on the floor was because 41 republicans held tight against consideration of those bills. so it's a little bit as my friend hall rodgers said last night from kentucky, the orphan who killed both of his parents and then begs for mercy from the court because he's an orphan. the republicans would not allow bills to move in the senate. you know that, i know that. the american people probably aren't as focused on why bills couldn't move, but it was because harry reid couldn't get 60 votes. on the one hand they're saying look you didn't pass the bills, which they precluded us doing, and on the other hand, as a result, you're to blame. that doesn't -- that dog doesn't hunt as they say in texas. and the fact is, we now have an opportunity, having come 70% of the way, they wanted to come on cutting spending, important objective of both parties, we've come 70% their way, and they're still saying no deal. the founder of the tea party patriots said last night in an interview with chris mathews, if boehner came out with $99 billion in cuts, would you make a deal, and his response was, no. they wanted 100 or nothing.

michelle bachmann who's the tea party caucus leader said, time to -- you're laughing. she said it's our job to get a budget done.

well, i think she's absolutely right. and i hope she follows through on that and i hope her people follow through on that. frankly we're going to give them an opportunity to do that today. which is doing what we have always done, when democrats were in control of the house, and george bush was in control of the senate. we came to an agreement. we didn't shut down government. we did have disagreements and where we had disagreements and knew the president wouldn't agree, we frankly gave in to the president under those circumstances because we knew that you have to in a democracy, come to compromise so that you can act. we need to do that today.

all right. congressman steny Hoyer, house minority whip, thanks for joining us this morning and good luck. you need it today for sure.